Transition

Inspiring Transition – community grass roots

We gather views in the local community and make comment, partitions and reports on local issues. Locally based and interested “civic champions” gather visions and strategy which become useful input to maintain and/or improve the local area in a sustainable way.

This is about cultivating local flavour at a prime grass roots level. It is similar to the work which is happening in the Transition Town groups, but even more locally based and neighbourhood-aligned, for instance within a single street or laneway, or just a few neighbours. You choose the size and it may vary as this approach is flexible.

The first gathering was initiated for the ‘Our Future’ plan of the City of Greater Geelong in 2017.

This was a once-in-a-generation chance for the people to get involved in commenting on their city and region. A professional approach by council has enabled the people’s voice to be heard. We must of course ensure that this Council embraces the concepts and draws on the outcome in ALL decision making.

Rusty has experienced where local government set up “forums” which were directly linked into municipal council that is ongoing two way dialogue. These were effective but only dealt with the municipality’s issues. Way too narrow and not necessarily linked to the aim of sustainability.

The Great Transition
Sustainability Movement wanted a more dynamic approach and did not want to reinvent the wheel, the search uncovered Andrew Gaines dissertations on the Great Transition. We may evolve out of this Inspirational Transition a need for the involvement in government and look to initiate a specific “Community Council”.

We are looking at moving forward using the approach that Andrew Gaines has now rolled out and provide a manual to assist in the approach we can all take to initiate engagement.

This approach is termed “The Kitchen Table Conversation”. Andrew does not run a central organisation but relies on the community gathering together. Our approach is with us joining into community and generally involving food.

Kitchen Table Conversations

Transitioning to a Life-Sustaining Society

The task of our time is to accelerate the Great Transition that is already underway, and indeed change the direction of our whole society to become ecologically sustainable. This will require a massive change in public attitudes and behaviours. We need a change in mindsets.

Personal conversations are our most powerful tool for affecting people’s mindsets. However, asking people to keep track of complex ideas in conversations is a bit like asking them to play mental chess.

So here we use pictures and physical models to keep track of conversations about transformative change to a life-sustaining society. Using the markers makes the conversations much easier to follow. People can focus on specific points while keeping the big picture in mind.

Experience shows that people like the models. I hope you enjoy using them!